Spare us the lecture, Ricky Ponting you broke the law too

Tuesday 14 July 2009 09:53 BST

In his hands: Ricky Ponting clutches the ball during the First Test

No one who was at Cardiff to witness England's outrageous escape from certain defeat by Australia will ever forget it. The baying crowd, Monty Panesar's wide-eyed stare and the rather absurd sight of England's latest - and rather portly - physiotherapist lumbering on to the field to waste some valuable seconds; it was gripping, thrilling Test cricket that will also have made an impact on the players of both teams. The question is what the effect will be on the next encounter, which starts at Lord's on Thursday.

For every ounce of excitement at England's rearguard action, there was also the unavoidable truth that they had played a dreadfully poor game. They had been outwitted in every department and particularly in the mind. The discipline and maturity demonstrated by the Australians was in the starkest contrast to England's naive and worryingly hapless approach, especially to the requirements of batting in Test cricket.

I am a big fan of Kevin Pietersen's batting and love watching him. However, I cannot be alone in wondering if he will ever fully do justice to the wonderful talent that has been bestowed on him. For much of the time, his shot selection is spot on and enhanced by that touch of audacious individuality that can take your breath away.

Then, calamity. Something short-circuits and we see a moment of utter madness. A man who carefully guards his personal statistics and counts his Test centuries has now denied himself two certain hundreds because the urge to experience the thrill (and the headlines) of getting there with a six overcame common sense.

He should have made a third last Wednesday in England's first innings but instead fell to a shot more befitting an Under-11s' net practice. His entirely predictable response, delivered with a shrug of the shoulders: "But that's the way I play". If I ever hear that lame excuse again, I will scream! Compare it to the Australian Michael Clarke, whose public reaction to getting out for 83 when a prized Test century beckoned was to berate himself: to show absolute honesty as well as an acknowledgement to his team-mates that he messed it up.

It is all about responsibility and if Pietersen is to become the great player that we all believe he is capable of being, he must start taking responsibility for his team.

If he does so, and checks the rushes of blood which have let him down, the hundreds will quickly stack up. Of course, it is not all down to Pietersen. Alastair Cook and Ravi Bopara both have technical issues which the Australians identified and exposed. Cook has to stop planting his front foot on the off stump, forcing him to play around his pad, because the moment he misses the ball, he is lbw. Mitchell Johnson's brilliant slower ball tossed wide to Bopara in the first innings highlighted the casual footwork which gave a spooned catch to cover and footwork was again the problem when he was judged lbw in the second. The ball might have been a little high but the batsman's error remained.

It was surprising how flat England looked in the field - and I thought Andrew Strauss made some tactical errors like not opening the bowling with Andrew Flintoff to rough up Phillip Hughes and setting fields that made it difficult for his bowlers to create pressure through bowling maidens. There is the hope, though, that the great escape on Sunday will give England the spark they need. You can be sure that Ricky Ponting will also have concerns about the dispiriting effect the failure to complete what, at lunch on the final day, was a straightforward task will have on his players.

Those Australians who were not here in 2005 - and there were no fewer than seven on the field at Cardiff - will now have experienced the jingoistic and partisan support that Ashes Tests have recently encouraged. It cannot have been pleasant for the Aussies to drag themselves from the field with that commotion ringing in their ears and Ponting has to ensure that it acts as motivation to win at Lord's. He has problems, too. For all his five wickets in the game, Johnson was well off the boil with a bowling arm almost as low as Sri Lanka's Lasith Malinga. Nathan Hauritz outbowled Graeme Swann and Panesar but that is not saying much. A decent spinner would have won the game, thus denying us one of Test cricket's greatest climaxes.

The disappointment was evident in Ponting's comments after the game about England time wasting. He was right, mind you, in that England were clearly guilty of gamesmanship when they sent out the 12th man - twice - to deliver first a message and then fresh gloves to a startled James Anderson. When the physio trundled on, it was too much; the umpires saw him off and England looked rather foolish.

Every team would have done it, including Australia, and I defy Ponting to deny it. Any footballer knows that when you need to waste time, you hoof the ball into touch or make a substitution: this is cricket's equivalent.

While I sympathised with Ponting, it was a bit rich of him to get on his high horse and claim Australia will continue to play within the spirit of the game, even if England don't.

While the match referee warns England this week about their time-wasting tactics, he should also call Ponting into his room and show him the unedifying replay of Australia's captain trying to convince the umpire to giving Paul Collingwood out to a catch, off the middle of the pad. Charging the umpire with the ball raised in the air is outlawed, Ricky, so less of the lecturing!

News that Flintoff is again under an injury cloud straight away complicates selection issues for Lord's.

Flintoff has had so many problems of late - and this one is with the same knee that was operated on only a couple of months ago - that you automatically fear the worst.

I was mildly encouraged to hear Paul Collingwood did not know Flintoff was going for a scan until the England and Wales Cricket Board announced it. You would think if the knee was causing the all-rounder real problems, that everyone in the dressing room would be aware of it. Either way, Steve Harmison is back in the party and, listening to national selector Geoff Miller, his chances of playing this week do not entirely depend on Flintoff's fitness.

But I would be loathe to see them leave out Stuart Broad on the strength of one poor game with the ball and, assuming England only play one spinner at Lord's, Graham Onions deserves to be the bowler promoted.

If Flintoff cannot play then Harmison steps up or Ian Bell is drafted in. Option one leaves England a batsman short, option two means they only have four bowlers - and neither situation is ideal.